This one is totally off topic, but it’s on my mind, and if I get the rant out of my system, I ought to be a lot more cheerful today. Sorry about that.

If you’re looking for WoW stuff, or just don’t want to bother with some old geezer ranting bout the world today, pass on by, my friends. Pass on by.

So, I worry about our kids. I worry about my son most, but yeah, I spare some concern for yours, too. I do. It’s all part of the service I provide.

I bet my folks said the same thing. And their folks said the same about them. And yeah, we turned out mostly okay.

But it’s true.

I look at the culture my son is growing in, and it freaks me out more than a little.

I already know my son will face challenges I never had to deal with. Hopefully, one he won’t have to deal with is growing up in an abusive home. And I look forward to the day he’s a teenager, and he tells me I just couldn’t possibly understand the stress he’s under, and the problems he’s dealing with, and how unfair I am for not giving him his own car when he turns 16. Ahhhh, those will be good times.

FYI, I never got a car handed to me. Or college, or the possibility of college. If I didn’t earn it on my hook, I didn’t get it. I can’t say I never got anything, however. When I graduated High School, my dad gave me a Smith and Wesson .357 magnum model 686 6″ barrel revolver in stainless with rubber combat grips. Damn, that was a nice gun. Sigh. I miss that gun. Sorry, back to the point.

I think the one thing I feel the worst about is how fast my son will have to learn in order to keep pace with the changing world.

The information age means more than just staying wired and connected. Having grown with the information tsunami, I’ve managed to ride the wave and stay on the crest without being overwhelmed… so far.

And I know what it’s like to have fallen off that wave, because I’ll get asked to come over and help install a Cable TV/VCR/DVD Recorder setup, because it’s just too confusing for some folks more used to the old rabbit ears era of long ago. Or to network a home PC setup, or troubleshoot a driver issue, or whatever. Programming a VCR? Okay, I leave that to my wife, I don’t handle that. Somehow, I keep having problems with the old VCR dealio.

Younger folks I’m sure think anyone over the age of 20 no longer have any grasp of things, but I think the 35 – 45 set have the simple advantage, if we were techies in the first place, of being there at the start and growing in tune with the changes. We simply add on to existing knowledge, concepts and ideas.

We stand on the shoulders of giants. We have learned along the way to improvise our solutions to pain-in-the-ass poorly designed technology, adapt to changing formats and standards, and overcome the challenges of wringing something useful out of it all.

But all that we can take for granted, those just starting out will have to learn from scratch. And there is no time for sitting on their butts watching Barney and then waltzing languidly into Kindergarten. And I feel really bad about that.

As much as I accept responsibility for trying to allow my son to have lots of unrestricted, imaginative fun as a child, and also get exposed to the computer and tech so he isn’t clueless, I can’t control the flow of information.

I worry about what lessons the rest of the world wants to teach him, and sometimes I want to scream, because once he’s out of the house, he’s at the mercy of whatever crackpot ideas the schools and his peers want to stuff in his head.

My son is 5 years old. From the day he was born, we were on top of all the rules and regulations about child safety. We had twin child safety seats of the appropriate type for both cars. He never, ever, ever sits in the front seat. He never travels without the appropriate safety harness.

When I was growing up, there were no safety seats. In fact, I can remember on more than one cross-state drive, laying not in the back bench seat, but laying in the window well above the rear bench seat. And do you think a cop pulled us over? My dad WAS a cop. Such things didn’t exist. Now, the story on our talk radio is about a mom that was arrested for standing 10 yards from her car, within sight of it, when one of her children was safely strapped inside, while she donated money to a Goodwill box.

She was arrested, and is facing criminal charges of child endangerment. Presumably because her car could have been carjacked. How times change, eh?

Every year, more studies are done about accidental deaths, and from those studies new laws are created to try and prevent them.

And that’s damn good. I think about the unsafe shit my folks did with me, like all the times I rode around alone in the back bed of our Jeep, and I cringe at all the kids out there that suffered to bring these laws into use now.

But there is one aspect of legislation out of liability studies that makes me nuts, and I mean serious nuts.

Liability. If a law is made, if choices are made that are based around liability, then pretty soon people who teach a lesson or moral are told what they are allowed to say, or risk incurring liability for any accidents that may possibly happen because someone once saw their TV show or movie.

I will give you an example of the kind of lesson that our children are being taught these days, and I’ll leave it for you to play your own game of ‘pick out what lessons are being taught to help kids, and which ones are taught to prevent our being sued’.

Here we go. When we let our son watch TV, we refuse to let him be saturated with commercials pimping the latest must-have toys into his head. So he watches cable-only channels aimed at the preschool and Kindergarten crowd, like Noggin.

One of the shows he likes is Fireman Sam, a nice smooth claymation-style British themed show about Firemen. And I admit, I like the fact he is watching something framed in another culture, just like I love him watching Sagwa, the adventures of the Chinese Siamese Cat. It’s refreshing to see him exposed to something other than Transformers or Ninja Turtles.

But he’s watching the show this weekend, and I’m sitting there watching with him. And the episode is about how haystacks can have a high internal heat, hot enough to spontaneously catch on fire. And, inevitably, there are two little kids playing near a haystack, that is smoldering and about to burst into flame, and they don’t notice.

Now, there is a little pain in the ass kid on the show, abrasive and disobedient, and more power to him. As you might imagine, he is usually the one that is disobedient to the directives of his elders, and thus needs to be rescued by Fireman Sam or die, the lesson being if you disobey authority, you will die a fiery death.

In this case, he is playing on his own because he was mean to other kids, and as he looks across a road, he sees the two kids playing, and the haystack that is about to burst into flames. He yells, he waves his arms. but he is 1 block away from the kids, across a small country road, so they can see him, but he’s just too far away to hear clearly. Since he is a troublemaker, they ignore him.

A short digression – in my neighborhood, if I was playing with others, and another kid started yelling at us and waving his arms, we would automatically go over there to find out whats going on, out of sheer boredom. And if he was being a smartass, and said something like “Nyah, nyah, made you come”, we’d pound him. Either way, it would relieve the boredom. So, whatever. I guess the British are far nicer about such things. And somehow, I have little trouble believing that.

Anyway, so the kids stay where they are and ignore the boy yelling and screaming and waving his arms.

Fine.

Now, here is where I go absolutely insane. Instead of showing the kid walking across the street to tell the two kids to get the hell walk away from the haystack before it bursts into flame, he continues to stand there yelling. And yelling. Utterly ineffectually.

A car driving on the street stops, it is the first car to drive by, and a lady gets out of her car to ask him what is wrong. He points across the road, and explains that the haystack is going to catch on fire. Remember, it’s still only smoldering here, smoking, no actual flame yet.

The lady in the car runs across the street to warn the kids, right? She pulls out the fire extinguisher she keeps in the trunk? She yells? She flashes the kids to scare them into running? She fires a gun into the sky? Right? She takes some kind of personal action? Right? Hops in her car and blasts into the little field to rush to the kids’ rescue? Right?

Hell no! She pulls out her cellphone and CALLS THE FIRE DEPARTMENT TO COME TO SAVE TWO KIDS SHE IS LESS THAN A BLOCK FROM ACROSS FLAT GROUND.

And then the lady and the kid stand there by her car, and wait for the fire truck to arrive. And you see a nice 5 minute montage of the happy firefighters getting all dressed up back at the station and getting into their fire truck to save the day.

And just as the fire truck arrives, the hay stack bursts into flame, and the kids try to run away in a panic, and one isn’t looking where he’s going, takes one step and falls down. Does he get up and run? Does he crawl away? Does he fight or resist or take action to save himself? Does he show any initiative whatsoever?

No. He lays where he stumbled, cowering in fear.

And Fireman Sam rushes up as the boy lays there, and the boy tells him “I think I twisted my ankle.” With a whimper and a chin quiver, no less.

And Fireman Sam picks up the boy and dashes to safety, seconds before the burning inferno of a haystack topples over onto the place where moments before he had lain.

The whole thing…. the whole thing pisses me off so badly I can’t even begin to break it down. There are so many lessons buried in this short scene I want to choke the writer and make him do the funky chicken.

Am I crazy? Am I the only one that sees that and breaks down the message a young, impressionable mind will carry away from it? Am I alone in screaming WTF in my mind?

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22 thoughts on “I worry about our kids (repost)”

I think socity when it comes to children these days is alot more complcated than it was for many earlier generations growing up.

Hell im 22, a wee babe by many peoples eyes, and i still experienced what would be probably considered a scandlously unsafe up-bringing in these modern times.

What i think most people lose sight of in amongst the whole “health and safty” aspect is the fact the children need to learn that life IS full of risks, and accidents happen all the time, hell the whole principle of growing and learning for a human beings is mostly based on the making of mistakes.

And the responsablility as an adult is to help children understand the risk and let them that those smaller risks like playing on tarmac and chucking balls at each other, so that they learn the key skills that will help then in more difficult situations, yes falling over on a hard surface hurts as does having a hard ball hit you, no the answer is not to make the ground and ball softer as then the child dosent learn that hard things hurt.

Now thats a gross over-simplification i know but its just to make a point.

As for the story about the children and the hay stack thats another shameful situation you see more and more of these days, and un-willingness to help others, in my short 20 years of life ive seen people become more and more self obsessed to the point where people automatically look for someone else to sort out tricky situations, rather than dealing with it themselves.

And finally as for the informational overload, having myself grown up with computers from the rip ol’ age of 4 1/2 (even if they were acorns and bbc’s). I can safely say it dosent seem all that overwhelming to me, you learn the skills at a young age easliy and the rest you can fill in later ^^, and your son is in the excellent position of having a techie father😉 just have an open mind about teaching him the basics and let him lead in what he finds interesting when the time comes, let him take the risks and be there to support him and in the worst case pick up the pieces and show him how it should be done ^^

@BBB: I often wonder if by over-coddling our children if we are inadvertantly setting them up for failure. Not only does the modern age pose risk to us as parents, but by closetting our kids, wrapping them in protective blankets of doom, how can they truly experience the world?

Recently there was a case in Britain where a young child had gotten loose from her daycare center, and was spotted by a man who was working in the area, playing near a water pond. The Man KNEW this was dangerous, but due to recent prosecutions in England, he didnt go rescue the child, for fear of being tried and convicted as a child molester. ( His fear was justified at the time, given recent hysteria in the area)

He called the police and reported it, But the child ended up drowning before they arrived. When questioned by the police as to why he didnt just grab the kid away from the water, his response was ” Even if I did save that kids life, and the circumstances of that are obvious to the court, all it would take is ONE passerby to report the child as having been assaulted by Me and my life would be over. The mandatory investigation rules and the resulting vilification in the press would tar his name forever.”

Have we created a society that is afraid to help each other in times of trouble? Are we training the next generation to rely solely on the government to help them out, that thier local communities are dangerous places, not fit to be seen in or near unescorted by police or social workers?

I fear less for my 2 childrens safety, than I do for societies unwillingness to allow them to learn anything about life and living it fully. 😦

Butt, your story and resulting response reminds me of an experience I recently had with my oldest sister, the mother of 4-year-old twins. Being that my wife and I are pregnant, she readily gives us advice on all matters parenthood. On this particular occasion, she pointed my wife and me to a website for the Infant Swimming Resource, a business that prides itself on teaching infants survival techniques for when they find themselves in a body of water and without immediate aid.

My sis thought that it was one of the most impressive things she had ever seen, and recommended to my wife and me that we sign our incoming spawn up for lessons asap.

Now, I’m usually a nice guy, but I just could not handle the nonsense of this advice, especially with a Developmental Psych degree hanging on the wall behind me.

I won’t bore you with the details of our argument, but I scolded my sister on the dangerous secondary lessons that would be learned with the false sense of security this “survival” behavior would produce. She eventually got the message, but the sheer initial disregard for what such a program actually teaches was just beyond me!

There is very little logical awareness out there. As a soon-to-be father, I completely feel your worry.

Ah I am glad I will never spawn, it seems to warp your brains in ways I didn’t think possible! Step back and look at this as a non-parent for a second… you’re way over analyzing a kids show that IS teaching a lesson of some sort. Just point out the crap that’s wrong in it to your kid if you’re watching it with him.

I’ve got to agree with Tekkub to an extent… no, not about the brain warping thing, but about the over-analysis. Fireman Sam is aimed at young kids, and is pretty simplistic in its message. Personally, I think that getting an adult to try to deal with the danger is a good lesson to give kids. They’ll get plenty of examples of heroics from the media as they grow up.

Of course, every parent’s view on the rights and wrongs of the lesson are going to vary. But that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? If the media were entirely responsible for the lessons that kids learn, then I agree that you might have a point about the messages coming from Sam and his welsh firemen friends; but they aren’t. TV shows are one part of the life lessons that kids get to learn by observation, and a far less powerful part than parental teaching.

For sure, I agree that sometimes the whole health and safety thing goes too far, my particular worry (and one that is thankfully shared by my wife) is that any child of mine be allowed to play in the mud, rather than having to grow up in a hermetically sealed disinfected environment. However, working in the education sector (in the UK) I do see some of the most incredibly outre law suits, with institutions getting sued for all sorts of random stuff. Our courts are getting better, and throwing more spurious claims out, but H&S is a fine balance to strike, and that middle ground is often missed.

Oddly, the thing that I find most scarey in your entire post is the fact that your father bought you a handgun! But then, that is a massive cultural difference between our two countries.

B^3 dont get me started on this topic. I grew up with a father who was in the Marine Corps for 33 years so one of the first things i learned was personal responsibility and that if I can help I help and that i do not to stop and think about the possible legal ramification’s before helping. Ohh and that 686 with the 6″ barrel sounds beautiful. I myself got a sig 226 on my 21st (gotta love FL). Keep on posting man its good stuff
~shamoo

I want to comment first about your posting about or society, and it comes not from me but from a familiar name. “Young people today love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for older people and talk nonsense when they should work. Young people do not stand up any longer when adults enter the room. They contradict their parents, talk too much in company, guzzle their food, lay their legs on the table and tyrannise their elders”. For the surprise of the reader this statement was not said in regards to the today’s youth. It was said in regards of the youth of another civilization when it was about to close the cycle of democracy. That was ancient Greece and the quotation is by Socrates.

To me it seems that we have become dependent on others and the government to “take care of us.” Do people keep fire extinguishers in their house? Not usually because the fire department will save us. A lot of people want to get rid of guns and our only means of self defense, why? Because the police will save you(which leads me to a whole other rant that I will spare you from). We purchased way too much house, and way more then we can afford. Dont worry the government will come to your aid and save you. It seems as though we are being bred to be dependent on the government. There is no more personal responsibility in our society.

Here is something that really scares me: The cycle of democracy
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.

“From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence:

“From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage.”

Dr. Alexander Tytler, a Scot professor, wrote a scholarly tome, from which this concept comes, called “The Athenian Republic” which was published shortly before the thirteen American colonies gained independence from Britain. “Google” him to learn more.

If you look at our history you can see all of the steps, and it can be debated on what step we are on now. I think its pretty obvious that we are near the end of it.

Morality, personal responsibiliy and common sense., those are the one thig oly you as a parent can teach your children. Everything else is just trivia. No matter how good your schools are those three things can never be learned from a stranger.

Man, I was gonna ask you why you deleted the original entry, and after reading the comments, maybe now I know!

I don’t think you were overanalyzing a kid’s show, personally. I think kids are a lot less stupid than parents give them credit for, and seeing people react correctly might teach them how they should react in a panic situation.

I took a first aid/safety course through work last year, and they showed us stupid cheesy “example” situations, handled badly and then handled well. Reminded me very starkly of the GI Joe “and knowing is half the battle” things.

Why not start showing kids good behavior early, instead of just letting them learn whatever and trying to “fix” it when they’re old enough to have a solid moral conversation with you?

Also, as a nonparent dealing with the decision of whether or not to have kids of my own, the idea behind the post “how do you raise a kid in a world where so much of their behavior may be based on what OTHER people say/do” is one of the biggest things holding me back right now.

Most of the kids and parenting that I see when I venture out of the safe confines of my home terrify me. Screaming “I want, I want, I want” until the parent caves in and they get everything they want? Watching my own family’s generation of youngun’s is enough to give me nightmares about raising a child.

I could only do so much to reinforce good behavior and a love of learning – what happens when they go to school and come into contact with the slackers and zombie-tv watchers of kids I see growing up now?

Sure, that’s a standard fear, I think. Probably was the same for our parents and their parents before them.

But I think I understand your post. =]

Also, if you want one of those uncomfortable “damn that’s funny, but oh good grief, so true!” laughs, watch Idiocracy.

As a parent, everything that your kid sees, asks about, talks about, or does can be used as a learning opportunity. Keep it simple and leave room for the child to ask questions. If/when they do, it means that they actually listened and thought about it to the point where want to learn more.

As far as schools teaching the test, you are 100% right. Kids will not be forced to learn how to learn and think on their own in school. They will just regurgitate whatever random information that they are fed. Memorization has replaced actual learning in public education, and its up to the parents to correct this, because when it comes down to it, its YOUR KID, and YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. You can’t expect that they will learn everything they need to learn to become a successful adult in school or on their own.

Find out what your kid’s primary learning style is, and be sure to use that method when trying to teach them something.

Just tell him what you thought of the show, and explain how stupid the people on the show were being. Hell, even make a joke out of it. He’ll remember, and hopefully not do stuff like that. I spent alot of my childhood watching Mystery Science Theater 3000, a TV show where people mock terrible movies. This led to many things like a very sarcastic and pessimistic outlook on life (May just be a teenager thing. :P), and a healthy skepticism for what I hear on TV, the internet, etc.
Take everything with a dose of salt.

Wow wind, this seems very interesting. I remember when I was a kid my dad let my brother and I drive dirtbikes on the highway once, we actually held onto the mirrors on his SUV and on the … whats the word its on the tip of my tounge that little step when you get out of a high vehicle I forget the name heh. But we were standing on that step and holding the mirror I remember it to this day. A cop passed us and waved. I’m only 20 so this was like 8 years ago hehe.

But yeah, about the fireman sam thing, I agree it taught a negative life lesson, but I think to stay in contrast with the show, ” Fireman Sam” they wanted it so fireman sam rescued the kid, not the women. I do agree it was a wrong conclusion to the episode though thaqt a lady stood there and watched the kid burning but thats just my 2 cents.

BBB-
You and I have known each other since B.C. (before Cassie) I don’t have kids and never will (not for lack of trying) but I do know most kids aren’t stupid. I have seen you with your son and I have every expectation that despite your own personal madness, the two of you have done a great job so far. He will grow up to be a good man.

In the time you’ve known me, you’ve commented how I have a knack for thinking out of the box. I owe that to my Mom. She made a game of problem solving. She would present a situation/problem,then give me the most obvious and easiest solutions. At that point she would ask me to give her at least two more ways to solve the problem.
Next time you see something that bugs you (Like the episode of Fireman Sam) play the game with him. You might just be pleasantly surprised.

“TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox
at twelve o’clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues.
We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four
hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we
got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night,
half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump
of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill
owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home,
our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves
singing “Hallelujah.”
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that… and they won’t
believe ya’.
ALL: Nope, nope..”

I would never consider my father “abusive” but he did kick my ass constantly… why? Becuse I did stupid things. I broke the rules he set on a consistent basis. I got in trouble at school. I got in trouble with the law (for vandalism/grafitti & petty theft). I was fighting all the time. My grades were horrible. I smoked (and sold) marijuana, drank alcohol, snorted (and sold) cocain, and had sex with any female I could. I was a train wreck and to this day, I regret having put my parents through all of that.

With all of that piss-poor behavior came countless ass-kickings from my Father, and an occasional thrown object from Mom. Amazingly, I took the whoopings and continued to do the same horrible, unscrupulous crap. My father could have beat me til his hands bled and it wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Then, one day when I was 17, I saw my mother crying at the table. When I asked her what was wrong, she proceeded to tell me what a failure she was as a parent and how she had let us kids down. There was my mother, the woman who gave birth to me and put up with 17 years of every horrible thing I did, sitting there crying because she was sorry that she LET ME DOWN? *gasp*

That day, at that very moment, my life changed. I told my mother that she was a great mother and I was going to show her that she did a fantastic job. From that day on, I cleaned my act up. I got a job. I got responsible. I got my head on straight and to this day, I lead a good life. I have my own daughter now (5 years old) and I assist in raising my neice as well since my sister passed away. I am doing everything I can to help prevent them from becoming even a shade of what I used to be.

We live the life we live and then we share our experiences with our kids. Unfortunately, “whisper down the lane” facors in and the meaning behind those experiences is eventaully lost over time. That is why it is important to allow your kids to have their own experiences. To let them learn from their mistakes. To let them feel the gratification of success. To let them live.

Metallica has a song called “Dyer’s Eve” from their …And Justice for All CD that kind of sums up what I am saying. The lyrics are…

To me, that line means that he feels like he was coddled, over-protected and not let to live out his own experiences. You do that to your children and they simply will not survive in the real world.

You have to live to LIVE!

(Btw, I apologize for the semi-weed talk overtone of my post. When I get a thought in my head and begin to write about it, it can easily bloom out of control, so I often find myself ending abruptly and then topping it off with what I believe is a profound thought. LOL)

1. I am 100% against guns… I live in Australia and think it was the best thing we ever did to ban them.

2. There are some pretty stupid f***ed up laws at the moment, the one you explained is a perfect example.

3. I’m 21 and most of my skills were learnt through school and/or from parents. I know a lot about all that electrician and car stuff from my dad and mum has given me a lot in the ways of cooking, being creative and thoughtful. There is things now days which they don’t get which I know tons about so I guess its just a new age.

Last year my then 18 year old son witnessed a car accident on his way to school. The car flipped and landed on it’s side in a ditch.

He pulled to the side of the road, called 911 on his cell phone, and then ran over to the car. A young woman was standing up in the car, and was trying to pull herself out of the car through the passenger window…she was pregnant. She was bleeding from cuts from the glass from the broken windows.

My son jumped up on the car reached down and pulled her out of the car through that window, eased her to the ground and kept her calm till the first responders arrived.

His arms were cut and her blood was mixed with his…when he was telling me about what had happened, the first fearful thought that came to my mind was the chance of him catching a blood borne disease….the first emotion I felt was immense pride that my son had the compassion to help someone in need.